


Baby Makes His Blue Jeans Talk

by misura



Category: In Other Lands | The Turn of the Story - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Jeans, M/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21833692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Luke in jeans.
Relationships: Elliot Schafer/Luke Sunborn
Comments: 19
Kudos: 136
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Baby Makes His Blue Jeans Talk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstaudrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/gifts).



"Are you sure these garments are in the right size?" Luke asked, frowning and touching the jeans as if worried they might fall off or explode.

Elliot allowed a few seconds to lapse just in case that would, in fact, happen, in which event he supposed that he would be obliged to do something about Luke suddenly being more or less naked and probably a bit upset by his sudden wardrobe malfunction.

The question 'so how do you feel about semi-public sex?' might require asking at some point, given that they were in a dressing room.

"Elliot?" Luke asked, returning Elliot to the cruel reality of non-exploding pants.

Elliot decided that he felt a bit embarrassed at having been caught daydreaming about Luke being naked, and that he rather resented Luke for this. Sure, Luke might be his boyfriend, but that didn't give him the right to do things like that.

"They fit fine, loser," he said.

Luke ran his hands up and down his jeans again. They were, Elliot could admit to himself, fairly tight jeans. They left a lot to the imagination, as proven by Elliot's recent brush with overwhelming feelings of tender lust. "Are you sure? I think - "

"When I was the one being forced to wear clothes I wasn't used to wearing - " very uncomfortable and impractical clothes, Elliot might add, but didn't, because that would only muddy the present issue " - did you hear _me_ complain?"

Luke might be an idiot, but by now, he was Elliot's idiot. "Yes?" he said. "On multiple occasions and at length?"

Elliot sighed. It was a bit disheartening to discover Luke still had these moments of not being able to read Elliot's mind in order to do or say exactly what Elliot wanted him to do or say.

"Well, you're supposed to be better than that, so suck it up," he said. "You're a Sunborn. Act like one."

Luke sighed. It wasn't quite a perfect echo of Elliot's sigh, but Elliot decided it was still progress of a sort.

"I suppose you're right."

"That's usually a safe assumption to make, yes," Elliot said. "But please feel free to be more specific in your acknowledgment of my rightness."

Luke's shoulders slumped a bit. Elliot snuffed out a spark of guilt with utter ruthlessness.

"You truly think they look good on me?" Luke's tone implied a degree of doubt and insecurity that Elliot felt was slightly alarming.

He knew, of course, that Luke had always claimed to dislike the sight of Elliot in clothes that were actually comfortable to wear, easy to clean (provided you had a washing machine) and good at keeping you warm in a place where 'central heating' meant someone had made a campfire big enough for everyone to gather around.

However, Luke being Luke, and Luke now being his boyfriend, Elliot had assumed that what Luke had really meant was that the sight of Elliot in jeans had turned him on.

Granted, nobody else had ever admitted to having that reaction to Elliot, but then, Luke was unique in many ways, so Elliot had allowed himself to believe. He should have known better, of course. He saw that now. This moment was his punishment, and he deserved it.

"I never said that they looked good, but I will go so far as to say they do not look bad." Elliot felt that was quite generous. He'd almost begin to worry that hanging out with Luke too much had made him go soft.

Luke turned his head to look at him and grinned. "Not bad and good are pretty much the same thing, aren't they?" As if this statement weren't shocking enough, Luke followed it up by running his hands up and down his jeans-clad legs again.

Elliot felt shocked. Also, it had to be acknowledged, turned on. "They are not. That is why people use different words to talk about them. Which I think we should stop doing, because we did not come here to discuss your short-comings, which are many."

"I never understood why you insisted on wearing these disgusting things, but I think I get it now," Luke went on, heedless of Elliot having put his foot down in a firm refusal to follow this conversational thread now that it had begun to spiral into madness. "And, I mean, you were right when you said I would need to wear these in order to blend in."

Luke was never going to 'blend in' anywhere. Luke drew people's attention anywhere he went. Elliot darkly suspected that if Luke were to walk out of this dressing room right now and reveal that he had wings, actually, nobody would be very surprised. They would just nod and stare at him dreamily some more while agreeing that, of course, Luke also had wings - and very hot wings they were, too. At which point Elliot hoped that they would be arrested and dragged away screaming by the language police.

"Your astonishment at my being right yet again is hurtful," Elliot said, even though Luke hadn't sounded the least astonished. He had, however, made Elliot zone out again a bit, so clearly punishment was required.

"All right." Luke nodded at his reflection, as if reassuring himself by witnessing his own approval.

Elliot decided Luke was extremely self-centered at times. He had noticed this before, of course, such as each and every time Luke had insisted on doing things for Elliot that Elliot might, with a lot of effort and in some cases a few years of hard training, have very easily done for himself.

"Good. I'm so glad that's settled."

"They're only clothes, after all," Luke said. "And I'll only be wearing them for a short while. And we won't encounter anyone I know."

Elliot nodded, grateful for the reminder that he'd need to take pictures. Naturally, he'd never show any pictures of Luke to anyone without Luke's prior approval, but it never hurt to be prepared. "That's the spirit."

He supposed it was a bit disappointing that Luke didn't seem ready to embrace the joys of jeans-clad-hood after all, but Elliot had learned early on in their acquaintance to settle for taking what he could get.

Luke studied his own reflection some more. Elliot wondered if Luke was becoming vain.

"They really don't look so very bad on you," he said, trying to make his tone soothing, reassuring. It felt like the sort of thing a good boyfriend would say. Better, surely, than 'I want to peel those jeans off of you and make sweet love to you right here, right now'. That would only make Elliot sound like an idiot.

Luke sighed, as if sympathizing with Elliot's plight. "Thanks."

"Any time," Elliot said generously. "Can we go now? We didn't come here just to buy jeans, you know."

Luke hesitated. "I think - maybe I should try on the ones in a darker shade of blue next?"

Elliot did not feel up to the ordeal of watching Luke get in and out of another pair of jeans. His training and recent experiences had turned him into a tough, battle-hardened individual, but there were limits.

Unfortunately, he knew Luke to be very stubborn. Elliot telling Luke how he felt would accomplish nothing. Subterfuge was called for, and subtlety. Possibly even diplomacy. Elliot was very good at diplomacy. If diplomacy were an Olympic sport, he'd be confident of being able to bring home the gold, and possibly the silver and bronze as well, that was how good he was.

"Look," he said, feeling his arguments line up in neat rows, like soldiers in perfect obedience to their general - something unlikely to happen in reality, but quite neat as a metaphor.

"Or we could make out for a bit," Luke said. "I mean, if you want to."

"I do not," Elliot declared, more or less on auto-pilot, his mind still on all the things he might say to make Luke see the error of his ways and the righteousness of Elliot's cause, which was that Luke looked perfectly fine in the jeans he was wearing right now - more than perfectly fine, in fact, not that Elliot hoped he would need to go quite that far.

Luke did something with his hips. If he'd been wearing sensible Borderlands clothes, the movement would have done nothing for (or more correctly: to) Elliot.

"Are you sure?"

"Uh," Elliot said, trying to remember the question. His hands had somehow ended up on Luke's jeans-clad legs, with the rest of Luke also very much within easy touching range. It made thinking clear and cold thoughts a bit tricky. There was something Luke had wanted to do, Elliot vaguely remembered, and Elliot had said he wasn't interested, because, well, when had he ever been interested in doing anything Luke was interested in doing?

Luke had terrible taste in fun activities. To say nothing of his taste in boyfriends which was, frankly, atrocious. Elliot knew he tried, but to be honest, he knew that he was pretty horrible, which meant Luke could not be trusted to make sensible choices or have good taste in any other aspect of his life.

Elliot licked his lips, aware that Luke was waiting for him, expression expectant and a bit cocky, too, like Luke already knew what Elliot would do, which was some cheek.

"Oh, all right," he said. "If you insist."


End file.
